Who profits from the Asia bailouts?
Economic Justice
Jim Wallis 1-01-1998
Several notes and e-mails commented on the mention of my then wife-to-be in my column last month.
Duane Shank, Carol Fennelly 1-01-1998
How will your community participate in the second annual "Pentecost to Overcome Poverty"?
Danny Duncan Collum 8-01-1988
Solidarity is back. That was the message from Poland this spring. For seven years after the December 1981 imposition of martial law, Poland's independent labor movement survived as a clandestine organization. And despite its low public profile, it survived as the symbol of Polish society's material, democratic, and nationalistic aspirations. It has continued to represent what Poles call "the civil society" in its confrontation with an oppressive and unpopular state.
In 1987 Solidarity began to emerge from the underground and work openly to challenge the state-controlled unions at the shop-floor level. Last November Solidarity called upon Poles to boycott a referendum on economic reform. The boycott resulted in the first electoral defeat ever acknowledged by a Communist state and confirmed Solidarity's prestige in Polish society.
This spring Solidarity was again at the forefront of world attention with a wave of strikes around the country demanding wage increases and relegalization of the independent labor movement. As it was when Solidarity was born eight years ago this month, the Lenin Shipyard at Gdansk was at the forefront of the struggle this spring, and once again Solidarity leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa was in the occupied shipyard hatching strategy and raising spirits.
The news reports had an aura of deja vu. But a lot has changed in eight years. This time the band of workers occupying the Lenin Shipyard was much smaller and mostly very young. In 1980 the Polish authorities were afraid to use force against the strikers. This spring riot police and a so-called anti-terrorism unit recaptured a Krakow steel plant with clubs and percussion grenades.
Jim Wallis, Joyce Hollyday 8-01-1988
South Africa. Just to say the name conjures up vivid images and strong feelings. It is a land of such pain and promise. And yet one has to wonder if South Africa is really so unique. Or is this tortured country a stark and illuminating parable of the rest of the world—a place where the issues, divisions, and critical choices facing us all are displayed in sharp relief?
For years we had hoped and prayed to go to South Africa, but we couldn't find a way. Then last spring, unexpectedly, a way opened up for us.
We went to South Africa at the long-standing invitation of Allan Boesak. We were hosted throughout the country principally by the country's black church leadership. That perspective is therefore strongly reflected in these pages.
The issues at stake in South Africa are quite simple and at the same time very complicated. We recognize that to write about them is a risky thing. Our 40-day sojourn had both the personally transforming power of an in-depth experience and all the limitations of a brief stay. While we were treated as friends, we remain outsiders like anyone who does not walk in the shoes of those who must carry on the struggle every day.
Our days were full, intense, and rich in both the breadth and depth of contact with people and events—a rare opportunity. Yet the report we offer is just that—a report on what we saw, heard, did, and felt-and cannot pretend to be a comprehensive analysis. The church leaders themselves, interviewed in depth on these pages, provide the best background, analysis, and vision for the future.
David A. Wade, Desmond Tutu 8-01-1988
Desmond Tutu, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town and winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize when this article appeared, was interviewed at his home in Bishopscourt outside Cape Town.
Jim Wallis: We would very much like to hear your perspective on what people speak of as the new era for the church in South Africa, the new level in the struggle against apartheid as the church moves to the front lines.
Desmond Tutu: In many ways the church—perhaps less spectacularly in the past—has been involved in this struggle for some time. Church people have been responsible for bringing the Namibian issue [South Africa's illegal occupation of neighboring Namibia] before the United Nations. And they have brought the plight of squatters very much to the fore.
For instance, the church was involved over the issue of forced population removals, particularly in Mogopa, one of the villages that the government "moved." The South African Council of Churches, with a number of church leaders, was there. We went and stood with the people to try to support them at a time when they were under threat.
Perhaps the government had not yet learned how to be thoroughly repressive so that the church did not need, in many ways, to be quite so spectacular. There were other avenues available for people, avenues that were more explicitly political.
What is different, perhaps, now is that the government has progressively eliminated most of the other organizations which legitimately could have been around to articulate the people's concern. And their repression has intensified. They have chosen the military option.
Jim Wallis 8-01-1988
ST. GEORGE'S CATHEDRAL was packed to overflowing. A rally had been planned to launch the newly formed Committee to Defend Democracy, a committee hastily put together by church leaders to protest the South African government's recent assault on democratic groups. But just hours before, the meeting was banned, along with the three-day-old organization itself. Quickly, a service was called to take place in the cathedral at the same hour the banned mass meeting would have been held.
Despite government efforts to obstruct communication, word of the service had gotten around. Police roadblocks had been set up to keep the young people from the black townships from getting to the church service in downtown Cape Town, but many made it anyway, surging into the sanctuary like a powerful river of energy, determination, and militant hope.
There was no more room to sit or stand in the church. People were everywhere--in the aisles, the choir lofts, and the spaces behind and in front of the pulpit. People of all human colors waited for the worship to begin and the Word to be preached. Outside the cathedral, the riot police were massing.
It was our first day in South Africa. The March 13th cathedral service provided a dramatic introduction to our 40-day sojourn in this land of sorrow and hope. Indeed, the notes struck in St. George's that day would be the recurring themes in the weeks that followed.